


Midnight Cowboy Drabbles

by MarcyBel



Category: Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Genre: Coffee Shops, Drabbles, Implied Relationships, M/M, Rico's Florida holiday featuring yet again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-24 05:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18162044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcyBel/pseuds/MarcyBel
Summary: I wrote two scenarios on the notes section of my phone, and all of a sudden they became fully fledged drabbles. Enjoy!





	Midnight Cowboy Drabbles

"You wanna hear about my ma?" Rico chuckles, and Joe recoils like Rico's making fun of him in some way. Stupid question. Family meant something to Rico, probably. But not much. Or else they wouldn't have left him all alone to survive in some condemned building indefinitely. His father was dead, and maybe he visited his grave, but did it mean anything? It's easier to love the dead than the living. You can forget the sins of the dead faster. Joe knows this more than anyone else, knows this keenly. Sally Buck always appeared to him in the form of an angel in his dreams, but had she been an angel in real life? Not entirely. 

Although Rico never seemed to forget the sins of the dead completely, endlessly reminding Joe on their trips to the graveyard what a dumb bastard his father had been in life. Maybe it was fondly, but with Rico, could you even tell? You could tell shee-it. 

Rico sees the look in Joe's eyes, the bracing for incoming humiliation, and softens.  
"I mean, hey, you wanna know, I'll tell you. A guy-" Rico cleared his throat. "It's only fair for a fella to know about their pawtner's family." It's nice to hear Rico say this, admit Joe means something to him, even if it's a word as undefinable as partner. Even if he has to lower his voice in a coffee shop to say it, under the din of other people speaking. 

"My mom, she was- well she had a motherly instinct like some sorta tracking device, if you get my drift. I had a lotta brothers, few sisters, and she looked after us while my father worked. I was the youngest of 'em all, so maybe I got special treatment for that, also on account of how I was also pretty sickly as a kid."

Joe nodded, listening for once. Somewhere in his mind he was noting this all down, so he could refer back to it, look at Rico with a fresh kind of knowing no one else understood. Rico and him, they were alone in this world, but together. If Rico told him something about himself, well he was convinced he would be the only one alive who knew it. There was a certain sort of pride he had in that. Like Rico was an undiscovered star, and Joe was his best friend who knew everything about him before his career took off. 

Joe couldn't imagine growing up with siblings, even though as a child he'd often wondered if he'd feel less alone, on the long afternoons while Sally Buck was out on dates, in their company. To have someone to fight with, to share toys and clothes and conversation with while still young, it sounded both hellish and sublime to Joe. Of course he'd be the older brother, who always set his younger sibling on the right course, he'd have nurtured them properly and taught them the ropes like any good older brother would have- aw, who cared. He didn't have siblings. Not like Rico. It didn't matter. 

"Then, one day I got real sick. I was maybe ten or something. Next thing I know I'm in a hospital bed and my mother... She's dead." Rico lit another cigarette. He made a gesture with the hand holding the cigarette, a kind of "life goes on" gesture that made Joe sad just to look at it.

"What about your, brothers? Sisters? What happened to 'em?" Joe leaned forward. It wasn't like he was eager to hear or nothing, but what if they never talked to Rico anymore because they were all dead or something? A family tragedy on an enormous scale. Maybe a bus full of Rizzos, minus Rico, who all ended up driving off a cliff? Or what if they were alive, but they never got in contact with Rico for as long as Joe had been with him because they hated him? A young Enrico Salvatore Rizzo, committing a grievous family insult that sent him adrift, ties cut with the Rizzos forever?

"I don't know." Rico shrugged anticlimactically. "They're probably around, somewhere. I never knew my brothers that well. They were all older, way older, y'know? By the time I hit fifteen they had all left."

"Huh." Joe looked out the cafe window, watching the people go by, endless crowds. Any one of them could be Rico's sibling. Although he'd imagine someone small, with dark hair. Maybe someone with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth crookedly. No, he was imagining Rico. Carbon copies of Rico, all running around New York. 

Rico snapped his fingers. "My sister Patricia! I know what happened to her. Yeah, she got a job as a seamstress." He nods, mostly to himself, like he's both surprised and proud of his recollection. The ring on his finger glints in the light, breaking Joe out of his reverie.

"Ratso?" Joe blinks a few times, showing off those blue green Bambi eyes, and Rico wonders if he does it consciously. "I mean, Rico?"

Rico looks up, tapping his cigarette out on an ash tray.

"Yeah?"

"How many siblings you say you had again?"

"Twelve." Rico takes a sip of his coffee, peaking over the rim of the large cup. Whenever Joe asked questions it was usually because he was building up to something. He could tell just by Joe's body cues, the way he touched his ear or positioned his arm around the back of a chair.

Joe smiles. "Twelve. Twelve. Well." They meet eyes. "Out of all them Rizzos, boy am I glad I met you."

Rico coughs, swallowing his coffee in one loud gulp. "Thanks." He says, rolling his eyes, but he's touched. 

\-------

There was one aspect in Florida, that despite all the research he had done on it, Rico found himself unprepared for. The Florida sun. Two weeks there, and he quickly found all the time spent living shielded from the sun in that apartment in New York had not exactly prepped him for the sheer glare of it. At first it's fine, in fact it's perfect. The sun is his friend, warm and comforting. It's a welcome change and Rico spends every second he can get standing in it, never in the shade or else he'd be missing out. Then, after a week in Florida, things were different. 

Joe can't help laughing as he walks into their small bedroom, seeing Rico lying on the open covers of their bed in what seems like a regretful despair. It's very dramatic, Rico laying there in his colorful Florida shirt and shorts so dashed, like a Victorian romantic who has just felt the horror and pain of heartbreak. 

"Sunburn's a bitch, right Rico?" He can't help but be amused at how red Rico looks, a crimson dusting across his face like a permanent blush when he turns to look at Joe. Rico scowls.

"How come you ain't burnt?" Rico demands.

Joe puts his hands on his hips, grinning. "Why, I'm a Texas boy, Rico. I grew up in the heat! I got the right, whatcha call it, natural immunity." Rico's eyes glide over him, scrutinizing but jealous. It was unacceptable that Joe had a nice tan already.

"I'm Italian for Christ's sake." Rico mumbles, turning so he lies face first in a cool pillow, his words muffled. "I don't get it, Joe. This isn't fair. I'm like a boiled lobster over here!"

Joe moves to sit on the side of the bed.  
"Aw hell, Rico, some sunscreen, maybe a little pink umbrella, and you'll be fine." He slaps Rico on the back to emphasize his point. Rico winces, being burnt down his back too.

Joe draws back, realizing his mistake, but still smiling with a beaming confidence. 

"We don't have to sit by the beach aaall day, now, anyway. We got the rest of our lives for that. Since you're so burnt, how 'bout we stay inside for a change?" Joe moves to stand, pivoting on his feet. "My grandma, Sally Buck, she told me a perfect remedy for sunburn-"


End file.
